Your account, your subscription, and what each tier unlocks. Create an account with email or Google, write on Pro for 14 days from the moment you start writing, and upgrade when you're ready. Billing runs through Stripe, and you can cancel anytime.
What you'll learn
- How to create an account and sign in
- How the 14-day Pro trial works, and what actually starts the clock
- What the Free and Pro tiers include
- How pricing works (monthly and annual billing)
- How to upgrade, manage your subscription, and cancel
- Where to find your account details in the app
- How your data syncs across devices
The previous chapter covered collaboration: sharing songs, roles, and sync. This chapter is about the account that holds it all together. Your account is what connects your songs across devices, gates the features available to you, and manages your subscription.
17.1 Creating an account
Song Cage offers two ways to create an account:
Email and password
On the sign-up page, enter your email address and choose a password (minimum 8 characters). You'll confirm the password, and the account is created. No email verification step blocks you from using the app immediately.
Click Continue with Google on the sign-in or sign-up page. Song Cage redirects to Google's authentication page (a full-page redirect, not a popup). After you authorize, you're redirected back and signed in. If you don't have an account yet, one is created automatically using your Google email.
Both methods result in the same kind of account. You can sign in with whichever method you used to create it.
17.2 Signing in
The sign-in page shows an email/password form and a Continue with Google button. Below the form, links take you to password reset and sign-up.
If you've forgotten your password, click Reset password. Enter your email address, and Song Cage sends a recovery link. Click the link in the email, set a new password, and you're back in.
17.3 The two tiers
Every new account gets a 14-day Pro trial: full Pro features automatically, no credit card required. The 14 days don't start at signup, they start when you begin writing (see below). After the trial, you stay on Free, which lets you keep editing every song you made during the trial and adds one paid upgrade (Pro) when you're ready for more.
Both tiers share the same core songwriting tools. The differences are in how many new songs you can create after the trial, whether your songs sync across devices, whether you can export, and whether you can collaborate with editors.
The 14-day Pro trial
Creating an account puts you on Pro right away. No card needed, nothing to claim. You can:
- Create as many songs as you want
- Edit any song without restriction
- Export PDF chord sheets and MIDI files freely
- Use every feature on every plan
The 14 days don't begin at signup. They begin the first time you write something in the full editor on the web or the desktop app: a chord, a line of lyrics, or a voice memo recorded in the desktop app. Signing up, looking around, and coming back next week costs you nothing.
This matters most if you start on your phone. Capturing on the mobile app does not start the clock. Record voice memos, sketch lyrics, and build chord ideas for as long as you like: the trial sits ready, unspent. The 14 days begin the moment you open that work in the full editor, which is also the moment the trial's features start being worth something, since the Ideas Inbox, share links, export, and a second song all live there. If you only ever use the phone, the countdown never starts at all.
When the 14 days are up, your account quietly transitions to Free. No song is ever deleted. What changes is which songs you can edit.
Free
After your trial ends, or any time you choose: you're on Free. The Free tier follows a simple rule: Free covers one song at a time, and nothing you have already written is ever taken away.
Every song you made during the trial stays fully editable and fully playable on Free. The limit is on starting a new one: when you go to create another song and you already have one, that's where Pro comes in. Export is the other Pro feature.
What's included on Free:
- Everything you've already written, fully editable. Every song, not just the latest one. Unlimited sections, chord blocks, voicings, word tools, audio recording, playback: all the same features as during the trial.
- Nothing is deleted, locked, or made read-only. There is no read-only downgrade on Free.
- Full chord palette. Diatonic, borrowed, and secondary dominant chords in every key and mode.
- All voicings. Browse and select guitar and piano voicings, including capo and inversions.
- Modulation panel. Pivot chord routes between any two keys.
- All Word Tools. Rhymes, near rhymes, synonyms, semantic drift, and Word Collider.
- Audio recording on the active song. Record voice memos and ideas while you're editing.
What Free doesn't include: starting an additional song once you already have one, and PDF/MIDI export. Those are Pro features.
Pro
Pro lifts the new-song cap and adds sync, export, and collaboration:
- Cloud sync. Your songs follow you across the web app, the mobile app, and the desktop app.
- Unlimited songs. No cap on how many new songs you create.
- PDF chord sheet export. Generate printable A4 chord sheets with voicing diagrams (Chapter 14).
- MIDI export. Export chord and melody tracks as a standard MIDI file (Chapter 14).
- Share links. Generate a link that gives someone viewing or editing access to your song (Chapter 16).
- Email invitations. Invite collaborators by email directly from the Share dialog.
- Up to 5 editors per song. Multiple people can edit the same song, with changes syncing across devices.
- Manage collaborator roles. Change a collaborator between editor and viewer, or revoke access entirely.
Chapter 16 covers collaboration features in detail.
Band tier retired. Until 31 July 2026 the collaboration features above were a separate Band tier. They are now part of Pro at no extra cost. Band subscriptions created before that date keep working on their original price and terms.
17.4 Pricing
Song Cage offers monthly and annual billing. Annual billing saves up to 22%.
| Monthly | Annual | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 |
| Pro | $9/month | $7/month ($84/year) |
There are no hidden fees, no usage-based charges, and no overage costs. You can cancel anytime.
The pricing page is the canonical list of current prices, with a full feature comparison and answers to the common billing questions.
The desktop and plugin license
Separate from the subscriptions above, there's an optional one-time purchase: Song Cage Desktop + Plugin (current price). This is a single purchase, not a subscription, and it never renews. It unlocks two things together:
- The native desktop app (The Desktop App), on both macOS and Windows.
- The Song Cage plugin (The Plugin), on both macOS and Windows (Audio Unit and VST3 on Mac, VST3 on Windows).
Both run offline, and you keep them for life along with free updates throughout the v1.x series. There is no separate plugin price: the one purchase covers both.
What this license does not include:
- Cloud sync. The one-time license unlocks the desktop app and plugin offline; it does not sync your songs to the cloud or across devices.
- The Pro web and mobile features. Unlimited songs, export, and share links in the web app still require a Pro subscription, separate from this one-time license. (Unlimited songs and export do work in the desktop app and plugin you bought. The mobile capture app is free on its own; see The Mobile App.)
It does not work the other way either: a Pro subscription does not include the desktop app or the plugin. The two are priced separately as of 31 July 2026. Before that date a subscription did include them, and anyone whose entitlement was granted then keeps it.
17.5 Upgrading
While your Pro trial is active, a small badge in the toolbar shows how many days are left. Click it any time to open the pricing dialog and convert your trial into a paid subscription early: useful if you're already sure you want Pro and don't want the trial reminder emails.
After your trial, you'll see an Upgrade to Pro option in the user menu. Hitting a feature gate: creating a second song on Free, or clicking an export button: also opens the pricing dialog with the three tiers side by side.
Click Get Pro to start the checkout flow. Song Cage redirects you to a Stripe checkout page where you enter your payment details. After checkout completes, you're redirected back to the app and your new tier is active immediately.
The entire process happens through Stripe. Song Cage does not store your credit card number or payment details.
17.6 Managing your subscription
Once you have an active Pro subscription, the user menu shows Manage subscription. Clicking it opens the Stripe billing portal, where you can:
- Switch billing cycle. Move between monthly and annual billing.
- Update payment method. Change your credit card or payment details.
- View invoice history. See past charges and download receipts.
- Cancel your subscription. End your plan at the current billing period.
All billing management happens through Stripe's portal. Song Cage does not have its own billing settings page.
What happens when you cancel
When you cancel, your paid features remain active until the end of your current billing period. After that, your account reverts to the Free tier. No song is ever deleted or locked. Every song you wrote stays fully editable and playable on Free; what you lose is the ability to start additional songs, plus export. Shared songs where you were the owner remain shared; collaborators keep their access.
Payment failures
If a payment fails (expired card, insufficient funds), your subscription status changes to past due. Stripe will retry the charge according to its retry schedule. During this time your paid features remain available. If the charge ultimately fails, the subscription cancels and you revert to Free.
17.7 The user menu
Your account details live in the user menu at the top-right of the toolbar. Click the circular avatar (showing your email initial) to open the menu.
The menu shows:
- Your email address.
- Your current plan (Free or Pro).
- Manage subscription (Pro users) or Upgrade to Pro (Free users).
- Sign out.
If you're on a paid plan, a small Pro badge appears next to your avatar in the toolbar, so you can see your tier at a glance without opening the menu.
17.8 Data and sync
Song Cage uses PowerSync for offline-first data sync. Your songs are stored locally in the app (in your browser, the desktop app, or the plugin) and synced to the cloud in the background. This means:
- You can work offline. Changes save locally and sync when you're back online.
- Your songs follow your account. Sign in on a different device and your songs sync down automatically.
- Sync is automatic. You don't need to save manually or trigger a sync. Changes propagate within a few seconds when you're online.
If you sign out and sign back in on the same device, your local data is still there. Signing in on a new device pulls your songs from the cloud.
17.9 Feature summary by tier
| Feature | Free | Pro | One-time license |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14-day Pro trial on signup | Yes | : | : |
| Songs preserved (never deleted) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Songs you can edit | All of them | All | All |
| Start an additional song | Yes | Yes | |
| Chord palette, voicings, modulation | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Word Tools | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Playback and accompaniment | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Audio recording | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PDF chord sheet export | Yes | Yes | |
| MIDI export | Yes | Yes | |
| Native desktop app (macOS, Windows) | Yes | ||
| AU/VST3 plugin for your DAW | Yes | ||
| Works offline forever, no account | Yes | ||
| Cloud sync across devices | Yes | ||
| Viewer and editor share links | Yes | ||
| Email invitations | Yes | ||
| Up to 5 editors per song | Yes | ||
| Manage collaborator roles | Yes |
The two paid columns are independent purchases, not steps on a ladder. Pro is the recurring plan for the web and mobile apps; the one-time license is software you own outright. Buy either, both, or neither. Where a row is checked in both columns, the feature works in whichever app that purchase covers.
That covers accounts, tiers, and billing. The next chapter is a reference for every keyboard shortcut in Song Cage, along with settings, input options, and workflow tips.